


Pride's Little Closet Full of Shame

by Deus_Ex_Ash



Series: The Unrelated and Slightly Unethical Misadventures of Pride the Arrogant [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Pride hates himself but hates everyone else way more, Pride is being weird, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, shameful thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5588077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deus_Ex_Ash/pseuds/Deus_Ex_Ash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each homunculus has a room that is entirely their own. Envy has a warm room full of pipes that he likes to nestle himself in. Gluttony has a room full of empty food containers. Etc, etc, and more etc.</p><p>Except Pride, he has an old, unused storage cloest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride's Little Closet Full of Shame

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to point out that while all these stories do take place in the same universe. They ARE NOT necessarily written in chronological order and can be read in whatever order you wish. This will be more relevant once I publish more work.

In the subterranean hideaway that housed the homunculi, there exists a room for each of them. Lust and Greed (before he negated any right to a bedroom by leaving) had typical ‘human’ rooms. Since their sins revolved around sex, it made sense that they had bed’s to sleep in. Sloth also had a mattress, though it was quite large and didn’t have a box spring. It would simply crack under Sloth’s weight. Envy’s room was nothing more than a nest of water pipes that wove from the ceiling to ground level. You would find him high up in that nest of pipes, warming his cold and almost reptilian body. Gluttony’s room was full of used food containers; needless to say it was quite gross. Wrath’s room was more like a second office and was almost never used.

Pride however, had a storage closet.

 At least, that was most likely its intended purpose. It wasn’t large enough to fit a bed but who needs sleep when you’re the essence of darkness. Pride mostly used it as a place to calm himself. Whether he was angry, or on edge, or was tired of the chaotic monotony that came with pretending to be a ten year old boy. Pride would cast his shadow into his room and it would all just disappear.

  You could say it was his happy place.

He could escape the humans and just be himself in that little room. It was dark, with only a single dim bulb casting any light. It was also dead quiet. None of the others dared to come in there so he was free to think clearly.

Though somebody had to have come in there at some point, or the light bulb would’ve burned out.

Pride found himself pondering this fact as he… what would you call what Pride was doing right now? He couldn’t really be sitting nor could be standing seeing as he didn’t have any legs. Sure, his human container had legs but the essence of him was shadow. And shadows don’t have legs. 

Shadows could encase something though. They could enclose themselves around something and shroud it from light. It sounded weird but that was about as close as Pride could describe what exactly he was doing.

Pride pondered over the mystery of the light bulb (amongst many other things) as he stared up at it. It was starting to grow quite dim and soon it would need replacing. Pride wondered who would replace it. He doubted it would be Gluttony or Sloth. They were both too brain dead to replace a light bulb and Pride did not want to see the outcome of that. Okay well, he did but only if it wasn’t his light bulb that needed changing.

It couldn’t have been Greed, he’d run off with filthy chimeras a while ago and therefore wouldn’t be welcome in Pride’s little sanctorum even if he was here. No, if Greed ever set foot in this place, Pride would slice him to ribbons.

Maybe it would be Lust. Yes, that was probably it. She was more of a home body than any of the others. It would make sense. She would come in and change the bulb and walk out again.

A part of him hoped it might be Father. That childish, foolish, ugly, disgusting part of him hoped that his creator cared enough to change a lightbulb for his eldest and most loyal of sons. That, however, was a stupid fantasy and Pride felt shameful for even entertaining the notion.

That was the beauty of this little room. He could be shameful here. He didn’t have to think, or do anything. It’s hard work – being the best – and sometimes entertaining those shameful parts of him made it easier to let them go. For as much as he would love to pretend otherwise, Pride did have his moments of sinfulness. The difference was that he could let go of those thoughts. He could cast them aside in this little storage closet and the next time he came back; the closet would be empty and waiting for Pride to store his disgrace here.

  Eventually Pride did get his answer to the lightbulb question.

He heard a small click of the door lock and a high pitched creek as the door opened.

“Wrath! What a surprise. Surely you should be at Central command.” Pride exclaimed.

It wasn’t like Pride was unhappy in seeing Wrath here. In fact, he was glad to see him. If anybody was worthy enough to share Pride’s space, it would be Wrath. He’d always been a good friend of his; you could even say he thought of Wrath as a brother. It was a strange thing to see though. Seeing Wrath, leader of a country, changing a light bulb for his big brother was a bit incongruous.

“Ah. Hello Pride. Yes I am supposed to be at work right now but every now and then I have to come down here for one reason or another and I make a point to come down here and change out this bulb.”

“Thank you Wrath, it would’ve been a pain if this thing had burned out while I was in here.” It actually wouldn’t have been that difficult to change a lightbulb but the mundaneness of the task would have made it impossible to do himself. He would’ve scratched his own eyes out first. Considering at times he was nothing but eyes that was saying something.

“It’s no trouble Pride; I of all people understand the need to get away from it all.” Wrath began unscrewing the lightbulb. It flickered as Wrath turned it, temporally obscuring Pride’s vision and his connection to that room.

“How did you know I was here? I don’t recall ever telling you where it was.”

“Oh that was Envy’s doing. He mentioned it to me a while ago that this was your room and that I should avoid it at all costs.”

“And since you have nothing to fear from me,” Pride finished/ “You decided to investigate. How bold of you. Truly, your reputation as a brave soldier is well deserved.”

Wrath chuckled a little. “Indeed, I have made it a personal duty of mine to keep this light going. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, as I said, it’s much appreciated.” Pride almost tried to nod his head in gratitude, sometimes having no discernable form was a real pain.

Wow, he sounded just like Sloth.

“Well, Pride I will see you when I get home. Don’t stay too long here now, alright.” Wrath turned his back on Pride and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

Now Pride was alone and all he could do was think.

Why would Envy tell Wrath about his little closet and more importantly why did Wrath care? It wasn’t his job and Pride hadn’t asked Wrath to do anything for him. The more petulant side of him said that he wouldn’t ask anybody to do anything for him but that part of him was worthless and didn’t deserved to be acknowledged. Even if he technically had just acknowledged it by saying it wasn’t worth acknowledging.

He liked being helped sometimes but never at the expense of his… pride.

Pride pushed those loathsome thoughts down. He shouldn’t concern himself with these things after all. He was a homunculus after all and he was made to be better than this. He was better than all of this. He was Pride the Arrogant. He was made in his father’s image and was the very essence of his father. He could be anywhere he wanted and nobody could touch him. Not in the physical or metaphysical sense.

Pride shadow swirled around restlessly. He needed to leave soon. He began to go through the process of shutting all his eyes, which had opened up whilst he had been collecting himself, and began retracting his shadow.

As he closed his last eye, he looked up at the lightbulb, somehow still dim even after it had just been changed.

His little storage closet was exactly as he’d left it: dark, cold, small, and full of Pride’s shame.

 

 

-

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved the idea that Pride is a self-deprecating narcissist, that is somebody who think's they're shit but thinks everybody else is way shittier. It's the most AU thing ever but something about it makes me happy, just the concept that Pride is only as happy as long as other people are more miserable than him is just... too good. Again, it's AU as all hell but I still love it.


End file.
